Wednesday, September 20, 2017

This month, you're getting plenty of sneak peeks into our anthology "Sweet Christmas Kisses 4, and today, it's my turn to post the first chapter of "Unique Christmas". I hope you'll enjoy dipping into the story!

UNIQUE CHRISTMASby Beate Boeker

Tomorrow
is Christmas. The
thought should have made me happy. Instead, it made me feel tired. I
rubbed my eyes as I mounted the last rickety steps into my office to
get my coat before going home. Major mistake. My right foot got
caught somehow, and I fell through the flimsy door into my shadowy
attic office, landing on my knees.

Grumbling,
I picked myself up. My clumsiness had started sometime in my teens,
when my legs and arms had grown with a speed that was downright
scary. At the time, people laughed at me and found me cute. But now,
I was thirty-two years old, and I still had all sorts of accidents
all the time, and it wasn't cute anymore. It was Embarrassing, with a
capital E. At least, nobody had seen me this time.

I
work as Public Relations Manager at the small but international
advertising agency Bello
& Pronto
in Florence, Italy. This year, the agency had grown like my arms in
my teens, and my boss had employed six new people. However, he had
not really considered the need for all of us to sit and work
somewhere, so the resulting space problem had given us a
sardine-in-a-can-feeling.

When
I had fallen over my colleague's feet for the sixth time in one week
in September, which resulted in a hissing fit of said colleague (I
admit, her legs were a bit blue), my boss had the brilliant idea to
give me some more space and quiet – by placing me in the attic.
Never mind that it wasn't really insulated. Never mind that you could
only reach my new office by climbing the most rickety stairs you've
ever seen.

For
an instant, I had wondered if he was trying to throw me out of my job
in some subtle way. Or murder me. However, I'd worked for my boss for
six years already, and I knew he was a dear at heart. So I bought a
rope to give myself something to hold onto when I mounted, and I
accepted my new office. To my surprise, it was heaven. While writing
the press releases I needed to churn out at an ever-increasing speed,
absolute quiet helped me make the words sing, and when I lifted my
head, I could look straight into the attic window on the house at the
other side of the street.

Not
that there was much to see. It was a dusty little window, and it
showed an attic similar to mine, empty, with the exception of tons of
dust and an old wooden cupboard at the far wall. That cupboard
intrigued me. When I got stuck with my texts, I went to my window,
opened it, leaned out and tried to imagine how that huge cupboard had
ended up in the attic, and what it contained.

My
office is in Via Montenerone, in the historic city center of
Florence, but the street hardly ever appears on a map – it's simply
too small. The distance between the houses is so narrow I can almost
touch the opposite wall when I lean out the window and stretch out my
arm. I only tried that once. With my propensity for falling, it's
better not to press your luck when leaning out of windows. I
contented myself with looking and speculating and admiring the fancy
woodwork on the cupboard. Its doors were covered with little carved
flowers I could easily discern when the sun shone in. That happened
every day for about five minutes, but only until mid-September. Then
the sun sank too low. I already looked forward to spring and wondered
when the sun would make it above the roof tops again, so it could
reach the room.

Now,
I rubbed my knee and hobbled to my desk to get my handbag and coat.
Ten days without work stretched out ahead of me, and I couldn't wait
to crash and sleep and relax. It had been an exhausting year.

From
the retreating voices downstairs, I knew I'd soon be on my own in the
building. Not that this was anything new. I'm a night owl and had
long since received the keys to the office. Besides, we'd just said
good bye and Merry Christmas to each other with a bit of Prosecco and
some snacks. The office was about to close for the year, about an
hour later than planned, but we were getting there.

I
sighed with happiness and suppressed the slight feeling of unease
that pooled in my stomach. My parents had gone on a cruise this year,
leaving me alone for the first Christmas since I was born. I'd told
them to go ahead and enjoy the sunshine, but now that Christmas was
here, I wasn't so sure anymore.

My
sort-of boyfriend Rodolfo had also gone home to his parents in Milano
for Christmas. I had to admit I'd waved him off with a lifting of my
heart when his car had finally driven down the road. His stuffy
presence had become unbearable these last weeks. Rodolfo was a lawyer
and compliance manager at a big bank. He earned tons of money, making
sure everyone in his bank stuck to every single law the governments
of Europe and Italy had ever dreamed up. Some made sense. Most
didn't. He didn't care about that. He spent his days enforcing all of
them. When I got to know Rodolfo eight months ago, I had no idea a
compliance manager had to have the most nitpicking personality
imaginable. Talk about professional deformation: He quoted paragraphs
at me even while undressing, and that really made me nervous.

On
the other hand, he was a dear. He was sweet and reliable and steady.
I did value that, which was why I tried to make a go of our
relationship, but finally, a week ago, I gave up. I told him we
needed to think about our relationship, and some time apart would
help both of us to see clearer. He was devastated. I was relieved.

But
now, with Christmas almost upon me, I hesitated. Was I going to be
lonely? “Nonsense,” I told myself, trying to make my voice sound
firm. “I'll finally have time to--” I lifted my head and stopped
mid-sentence.

The
attic window in the house next door, the one that had intrigued me,
was alight. I could see it clearly, a rectangle in the dark, like a
medium-sized television screen or a tiny theater stage. A man sat at
a desk that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. He had his
profile to me, and I could see his strong jaw, his coffee latte skin,
and his mop of dark curls as if I stood in the same room. He stared
at the screen of a notebook with a frown that made his eyebrows
bristle, and he was wearing an ugly, hand-knitted sweater made of
some mottled brown wool. Where had he sprung from?

Mesmerized,
I took a step forward. In all these weeks, I had never seen a soul up
there. The attics had been my private area, giving me the feeling the
roofs were my world alone, and now, just before Christmas, this guy
had appeared like . . . like Father Christmas.

I
smiled at myself. No, he didn't look like Father Christmas at all. I
took my time to survey him a bit better. He looked like a teddy bear.
A brown, cuddly teddy bear, particularly with that rough sweater and
those unruly curls. A Christmas Teddy.

Actually,
it was quite a nice view – a decided improvement. But what terrible
timing! Would he still be sitting here in the New Year? I had spent
my life in this attic these last weeks – at least, that's how it
felt – and now, on the very day when I planned to go on vacation,
he appeared. It wasn't fair.

Maybe
I could say something nice to him? Something like Merry Christmas or
equally meaningful stuff? Yes, that's what I would do. Maybe we could
have a little chat and I could find out if he'd come to stay for
longer.

I
went to the window, took hold of the handle and yanked it open. The
window had a tendency to get stuck, but I'd long ago learned the
trick. If I pulled just so, with all my might, and twisted it a bit
to the side, it would open with a little, familiar creak.

There
it was. The creak.

Then
I heard another creak. Only it wasn't a creak. It was a crash. And
then, before I knew what was happening, the whole window became
unstuck and crashed onto my head. I went down like a sack of
potatoes.

To read the full story (and 13 other stories besides!), you can pre-order SWEET CHRISTMAS KISSES 4 for only 99 cents here: